


before the devil knows you're dead

by Wildehack (Tyleet)



Series: Author's Favorites [5]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6512254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before the devil knows you're dead

**Author's Note:**

> This was written ages ago for velvet-midnight on tumblr--I came across it by accident, and am putting it here so I don't lose it again. :)

The afterlife, as Doyle seems to be experiencing it, is a white room. There’s a strange woman sitting at a desk, writing busily with a genuine sharpened feather. Her skin is covered with gold dust, and she doesn’t look a thing like the angels his mother used to warn him about when he was a boy.   
  
“Is this the Pearly Gates, then?” he asks dubiously, and the woman gives a delicate snort.   
  
“Don’t be ridiculous, Allen,” she says briskly, dipping her quill in a little pot of ink. “You signed a contract. You’ll be with us for quite a long time yet."   
  
Doyle blinks. “You’ll pardon my asking. What contract are we talking about, exactly?”   
  
She pushes a piece of paper across the desk at him. It’s thick and yellow and curls inward, and the elaborate handwriting sprawled across it is in a dark red ink he doesn’t quite like the look of. There’s lots and lots of fine print, but he latches onto some important looking words right big at the top.  
  
_The Witness Herein Agrees to be Bound to the Usual Arrangement, Not Forsaking His Oath despite Loss of Memory, Mind, or Matter. To Atone for His Sins, and for Some Mercy to be Bestowed upon The Mortal Harriet Doyle, The Vessel Cordelia Chase, and The Champion Angelus, the Witness Shall Pledge Service Until Such Time As The Powers That Be Decide his Debts are Paid Or The Year 2053, Whichever Should Come First. The Acceptance of The Sight Shall Serve To Bind The Witness._  
  
At the bottom is his name, a dark familiar scrawl. When he brushes it with one finger, he gets a sudden flash of pain—the faintest echo of the visions. “So I don’t get a say in this at all?” he demands, thinking wistfully of the heaven in his mother’s bible, of the rest that he’d been bold enough to hope for while alive. “I don’t remember signing the damn thing. This could be forged, for all I know,” he tries, although his fading headache tells him otherwise.   
  
"It is genuine,” the woman tells him, sounding bored. “Nothing comes without a price, Allen."   
  
"—Don’t call me that,” he interrupts, but she continues placidly on.  
  
“Even goods unsought must be paid for. Would you change your terms?"   
  
He looks at the paper. Some Mercy to be Bestowed, it says. On Harriet, on poor Cordy, on Angel who would have died for Doyle’s sins if he could have. The three sorry people he loved most in his sorry life. “Can’t say I’m surprised,” he says with regret, folding up his contract and sticking it into his coat pocket. “Although I must admit I’m disappointed. I rather thought lawyers stuck with devils.”   
  
The woman raises one gold eyebrow. “We must fight fire with fire, Allen Francis Doyle,” she says, and gives him his first assignment. It’s not a paper. It’s a vision, painful and clear and true.   
  
There’s a little girl in a pink shirt and pink jelly shoes. She’s a ghost, or nearly a ghost, talking to people that can’t hear, slamming the doors of empty rooms. She’s flickering green all over, like a glitch on a screen, like she might disappear at any second. There are monsters prowling through that half-world with her, and nobody at all to see, nobody at all to save her. Nobody except Doyle.   
  
The woman waves her hand, and a door opens up out of nothing. Doyle knows without touching the handle that it leads to the green girl’s house.   
  
"Let it be in heaven as it is on Earth,” Doyle mutters, and opens up the door.


End file.
